IRAQI WOMEN WANT PEACE
Kamala Sarup

Los Angeles Chronicle
April 11 2006

“Many Iraqi Women and Children want to be able to go to the market
without being afraid.” These words spoken by 21 years old my own
brother Jitendra who is in Iraq, working with American Army.

Political instability and the Maoist insurgency have droves leaving
him our old town home Nepal so left the country and reached to Iraq
for employment. As it is difficult to survive the deteriorating
conditions in Nepali villages, large number of young people tend to
leave their villages looking for better opportunities even going to
Iraq or Afghanistan.

“I came to Iraq because people including women were being killed in
Nepal. We were very scared. All of us fled. Many other people in our
town have had similar experiences. But when I came to Iraq I see, with
the escalation of murders, bombings, and other forms of violence and
disruptions, thousands of Iraqi women and children have problems of
depression. The indirect effect is much larger.” He sent me an email.

War Times, December 2003 reported “The situation for women is worse
now than before the war,” said Eman Ahmed Khammas, director of the
Occupation Watch Center in Baghdad. Yanar Mohammed, co-founder of a
new Iraqi group called the Organization of Women’s Freedom, agrees:
“Organized gangs are kidnapping women, to be exploited and sometimes
to be sold. This has created fear and horror for women.”

State Press, 3/2/04 said “Things are a lot worse now. There’s no
security. Women cannot go out, cannot express themselves. The veil
has become compulsory for Muslims and Christians. This situation has
forced many Iraqi women to re-order their lives, wearing the hijab
for the first time and only traveling with male relatives”.

Yesterday A Swiss institute reported “Nearly 40,000 Iraqis have been
killed as a direct result of combat or armed violence since the US-led
invasion. A study published in The Lancet, a British medical journal,
last October that said there had been 100,000 “excess deaths” in
Iraq from all causes since March 2003. Military deaths in the US-led
coalition forces are closely tracked and now total 1937.

The Swiss institute said it arrived at its estimate of Iraqi deaths
resulting solely from combat or armed violence by re examining the
data gathered for the Lancet study and classifying, when it could,
the cause of death.

Report also says “Despite billions of dollars of improvements,
thousands of jammers and tonnes of armour plate, the so-called
improvised explosive devices in Iraq killed more Americans in May and
June than in any previous months, US military figures show. Attacks
in May alone reached 700, and the roadside bombs, car bombs and other
devices are now the cause of more than half of US casualties in Iraq”.

“Iraqi women unemployment in the cities is twice as high as male
unemployment. Iraq war has produced poverty, unemployment, internal
migration. As refugee women are especially most vulnerable. Because
of the war, many women are separated from their families”. Jitendra
my brother is one of hundreds of thousands of Nepali boys directly
affected by the Maoists war who went to Iraq for employment said.

“Kamala, cities and towns are the battlefield and women and children
the victims in Iraq. With the destruction the women and children are
badly affected in Iraq. Thousands of women and children have lost
their husbands, and parents”. He said yesterday.

“People can’t expect girls and children to grow up normally amid guns
and explosives. We can see that thousands of women and children have
been killed in Iraq. This figure will go up”. Jitendra further said.

“On the other side, the exploitation of women and children in the
ranks of the Iraqi rebels must end. In order to solve the issue of
the war and guarantee human rights to the Iraqi women, all have to
arrive at a conclusion on how this challenge to the security of the
women can be met. Innocent people and women have been victims.

Attacks occur in different parts of the country, so the situation is
very tense,” Jitendra said.

Even today Mr. Khalilzad, said the United States is willing to talk to
some elements of the Iraqi insurgency. ” Iraqis who have an interest
in a successful Iraq, who would like to live in a situation where
minority rights are protected, where Iraq can work for Iraqis.

So, yeah, we’re willing, in cooperation with the Iraqi government
and others, to talk to them,” he said.

My brother Jitendra said. “The Iraq war ruined dozens of lives. On the
other hand Iraqi people have also a particular dread of terrorism. The
atmosphere of terror ruined the Iraqi national economy also. A
humanitarian crisis is taking place in Iraq. Terrorist activities
cannot and should not be tolerated but Iraq war is also not good for
the people here. Iraqi people do not want war. They want peace”.

It is true, the wars being waged in Afghanistan and Iraq are the
immediate objectives of this war against terrorists. Even we Nepali
speaking world energetically condemns terrorism, but we do not like
any war including Iraq war to Maoists war.

In the past several years, the war has continued not only in Iraq
or in Nepal but in Sierra Leone, Burundi, Angola, Nigeria, Liberia,
Guinea, Zimbabwe, Congo. Several years after mass killings in Bosnia,
Somalia, and Rwanda, there are at least six major cases of genocide.

The mass killings of Armenians by Turks, Jews by Hitler, Cambodians
by the Khamer Rouge, Kurds of the northern Iraq by Saddam Hussein,
Tutsi of Rwanda by the Hutu and of Croats, Muslims the Albanians of
Kosovo by the Serbs.

There have been nearly thirteen thousands six hundred wars since
thirty six B.C. The toll of human misery measures around thirty
millions direct battle deaths since Waterloo and one hundred million
since three thousands six B.C. Then there are uncountable deaths,
broken bodies and lives from the ravages and effects of these wars.

About ninety five million of people have been killed in communist
countries only.

Suffering of civilians in war is increases substantially during any
kind of war. In the first World War, five percent of the casualties
were civilians, and in the second World War, the figure was fifty
five percent. Since then civilians have accounted for ninety percent
of the casualties.

Peace is an essential aspect of the safer world from Iraq to Nepal.

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From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress